


Tonight, We Rejoice

by raisedbymoogles



Series: Robots Resist [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Transformers Generation One
Genre: Current Events, Fireworks, Gen, Yes all of them, celebration, hot rod rallies the troops with the power of adorable, opinions in this fic are my own, resist, shameless catharsisfic, the evil has been defeated, victory brings mixed emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisedbymoogles/pseuds/raisedbymoogles
Summary: ...and tomorrow we take up arms again.
Series: Robots Resist [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/878088
Comments: 17
Kudos: 39





	Tonight, We Rejoice

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2:30 AM here and I'm still vibrating please forgive any typos

“Now ain’t that a gorgeous sight.”

Jazz, gleaming like a star in his new paint, bent to offer Spike a lift to see the fireworks better. The human gratefully accepted, settling in on Jazz’s shoulder, and grinned at Prowl standing just a step away from them both. “Best night in a while,” Spike agreed, and his words were punctuated by another _fizzzz-POP,_ the Decepticons’ Vote-Eater-O-Tron 3000 getting blown up piece by piece courtesy of an enthusiastic alliance of Autobot ordinance enthusiasts and superpowered humans. “I really thought we were gonna lose for a minute there.”

“But you didn’t stop fighting for an instant,” Prowl observed, and another far-overhead explosion lit the planes of his face briefly, before the falling evening shadows softened it again. “Well done.” Spike ducked his head with a pleased-embarrassed growl. “Well done, _all_ of you.”

( _“Whoo! Get slagged, you fascist tire fire!”_ howled Sideswipe from over at Munitions Testing Site One, redubbed from Make Adam Savage Proud to Make Stacey Abrams Proud for the evening.)

The Autobots drew themselves up in pride at the praise - aside from Optimus Prime, currently idling in truck mode, and Huffer, who remained committed to glumness. “We haven’t won yet,” he lamented. “Not by a long shot.”

“Come on, we took it home today!” Cliffjumper protested, nudging his friend’s shoulder. “Take a load off for an astrocycle before you start with the doom and gloom again.”

“We won by the skin of a human’s teeth!” Huffer wailed. “After everything we’ve been through, everything they destroyed, we _still_ almost couldn’t pull it off.”

“‘Almost’ only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” Sparkplug recited from the little fire pit where he was teaching Marissa how to roast marshmallows.

“Sparkplug’s right. We _did_ pull it off,” Hound pointed out. “Even though they did their best to stack the odds against us. Including, you know, giant vote-eating robo-dumpster.” He waved a hand illustratively at the fireworks-painted sky. “I’m pretty proud of everything we accomplished.”

“Yeah, but he won’t go out without a fight!”

“Do they ever?” Mirage wondered. “Let him fight. It will keep him occupied until January.”

Huffer’s expression fell further, seeing no support in the relieved cheerfulness of his teammates. He resigned himself to a night of brooding by his lonesome when another voice chimed in: “Huffer’s right.”

Huffer reset his audial sensors just to make sure he was hearing correctly. “I am?”

Steve Rogers, pensively toying with a marshmallow on a stick as he waited his turn at the fire, said, “You’re all right that we won a battle today. But Huffer’s right that the war isn’t over. I wish I could be more optimistic,” he admitted, tilting his head up to gaze at the spangled sky. “But too many people didn’t live to _see_ today because of Donald Trump and everyone who enabled him. The rot goes deeper than one bad man, much deeper, and the work to get it out is going to take - years. Decades. Generations, probably.” He looked at his marshmallow on a stick like he wanted to throw it away dramatically if it wouldn’t have been a tragic waste of a marshmallow. “We can’t rest yet. Maybe we can’t ever rest.”

Huffer wanted to crow _see, Captain America agrees with me!_ except the rough weariness in the human’s voice made any such celebration seem... in poor taste. “...yeah,” he muttered at the ground instead. “Something like that. Feels wrong to be watching fireworks at a time like this.”

“No, see, _that’s_ where you’re wrong.”

Every optic and eye turned to Hot Rod, who’d been - oddly for him - quiet most of the evening. “We _should_ be resting and we _should_ be watching fireworks,” the racer informed them rapidly, as if trying to outrun his own embarrassment. “We should celebrate winning this battle hard enough for everyone who can’t be here. I mean,” he corrected himself, “I’m not trying to tell you how to feel, I promise! But, just, you hang out with your friends, or you blow stuff up-” _Bang,_ went another piece of the dead superweapon. “-and maybe you grieve or you get good and torqued off over everything that _should_ be and _isn’t._ And you do whatever you need to do to get good and recharged so that when the _next_ battle comes, you’re ready to _kick its aft._ ” He showed his doubled fists, clearly spoiling for the next fight despite how hard-fought the last one had been - then seemed to catch himself, withdrawing sheepishly. “That’s what Optimus Prime taught us,” he pointed out in his own defense. “Right, sir?” He turned to Optimus hopefully.

The entire party fell silent, waiting for the wisdom of the Prime to issue forth: but all that emerged from Optimus’s cab was a quiet but unmistakeable snore.

“...uh.” Hot Rod, to his credit, rallied quickly. “See, Prime agrees with me.”

He got a series of chuckles for that, and Prowl nodded to him. “So it appears. Well said,” he added, and Hot Rod glowed at the praise. “Very well, then. Tonight we rest; tomorrow the battle begins anew.”

“Because one day _I’m_ gonna be old enough to run for President,” Marissa announced, “so I’m counting on you to preserve democracy at least that long.”

“Well, you’ve got _my_ vote,” Spike told her, and Jazz giggled at them both.

The sounds of fireworks continued, mingling with the sounds of idling engines and a crackling fire and Optimus’s snores: a mix that was oddly soothing.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU to everyone who voted, who donated, who fought. There's no superheroes in this story, we all did it together.
> 
> (Sam and Natasha are off with Sideswipe blowing shit up just so you know)


End file.
